Wherever I was living on Friday the 13th Feb. 2004, I was concreting a floor and painting a hallway (so says my diary).
In the evening I stayed at the Flinns ready for a 5:00am drive to Portsmouth. It was the year the caravan came with us and in the car was David, Eileen and Robin.
We made good time but the ferry was delayed by two and a half hours. We spent the time chatting to people in the queue and machine-gun toting policemen.
Once on the ferry we took a whole row of comfortable seats in the casino entertainment area and slept.
It was a long drive from Cherbourg to Radenac and on arrival (12:30am) Gary made us curry, chips and rice...absolutely delicious but not the best thing to sleep on. Actually, I slept on the settee...like a log.
Bel-Air was a brilliant sight in brilliant sunshine when we arrived the next day. We unloaded the caravan of scaffolding and a million other things and had a pleasant walk to Cruguel and around the lake back to Bel-Air. Then we drove back to have a chicken lunch with Gary in Les Riviers.
Monday was another sunny day. Gary went berserk and waged war on the brambles with a strimmer in the front garden. He also cut dead trees down with Robin's help.
David, myself and Eileen were indoors chopping holes in the walls to house the beams and later to cut and fit the beams. Robin and I carried on while the rest went to Josselin for plasterboard and food.
We ended up having a huge fire in the garden which threatened to spread out of control.
It was 8:30pm and in pitch black when we arrived back at Gary's for some very suspect potatoes and bolognese...ughh!!
The jobs that followed were...levelling and treating beams and securing them, chopping and de-branching all our tree trimmings, fires glorious fires, visits to builders merchants (David paid a small fortune at Plumelec for a small concrete lintel...36:50 euro). We arrived in darkness for tea at Gary's place for pasta bolognese and general chit-chat about the day... and electrical regulations! Oh my goodness, those French electrical regulations that seem to change without warning. Gary wasn't with us today. I think one of those thorns aggravated a septic finger and he needed to spend time with the doctor.
I had a nightmare which lasted longer because Bev wasn't here to nudge me.
The next few days were the same sort of thing...plasterboard delivery and heaving them upstairs...all 50 of them (David and I), stone lintel into position, moving studding and the like. David's living room fire was lit for the first time, I used the chain saw to cut the stairwell (a defining moment). Windows and other features like fireplaces hidden for years were discovered. It was an exciting time.
We couldn't have worked harder during the week we were here.
On the way home to England we visited St Mere Eglise and Utah beach.
One of the fires in the front garden...a small one.
Within a week I would be in a foot of snow in Sunderland doing jobs for Juli.
Next visit to Bel-Air...August 29th. 2004...with Bev.
